During the last week I’ve been working to create a foundation for my planned travel from Cape Town to North Cape during the first months of 2008. The plan is to fly to Cape Town early January to make the final preparations and then start my route by taking to bus from Cape Town towards Durban on January 30th.

For the moment
•    Planning the route and make contacts along the way
•    Work with the economical part to get the 4 000 dollars missing

I got back from Söderhamn yesterday; I’d spend all weekend there to hold two workshops and one lecture in one day. Hard work but a great fun. I meet new friends and I got some contacts with the other workshop leaders. That was my third year at the event Miljötinget and I hope to get an invitation for next year to talk about Cape to Cape.

A remark
Today, the One Laptop Per Child-program, started their donation campaign, take a look at it here. http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php

Tomorrow, I will work from Café Edenborg all day. And then get to the first ”Publik Service” event in the evening.

Cape to Cape 2008 are my mission to learn more about our world. I´m going to travel between Cape Town, South Africa and North Cape, Norway during the spring of 2008.

I’ve been trying to get some perspectives of my life and what I want to, and need to do. I’ve been thinking and talking to people, and now I want to learn more about the world, build contacts and tell the forgotten stories from regions where the good news are unusual.

My aims during the route:

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE WORLD
I want to see and listen. When we get all your information from schoolbooks and media, we tend to get a limited view. So I really want to listen to people along the route and get a better understanding about social problem, religion and the future of our planet.

CREATE COOPERATION´S AND CONTACTS
I will create cooperation’s with organizations, politicians, media, companies and the public sector. I want to create a global network of people engaged in the issues and see that we can continue to communicate. This is a key issue in my future work as a storyteller.

TELL THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
I can’t accept the picture we get of Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe in the established media today. And I want to show the other side of the story. And tell you about engagement, creativity and a bright future. I will publish the stories in text, images and video at a website, use media and more.

Countries, draft 1
South Africa / Lesotho / Mozambique / Zimbabwe / Botswana / Namibia / Zambia / Malawi / Tanzania / Burundi / Rwanda / Uganda / Kenya / Sudan / Egypt / Jordan / Israel / Palestine / Lebanon / Syria / Turkey / Bulgaria / Greece / Macedonia / Serbia / Croatia / Hungary / Slovenia / Austria / Slovakia / Czech Republic / Poland / Belarus / Lithuania / Latvia / Estonia / Russia / Finland / Norway / Sweden

The conference is organised by the The National Council of Swedish Youth Organisations and European Youth Forum.

15 Global Challenges

1. How can sustainable development be achieved for all?

2. How can everyone have sufficient clean water without conflict?

3. How can population growth and resources be brought into balance?

4. How can genuine democracy emerge from authoritarian regimes?

5. How can policymaking be made more sensitive to global long-term perspectives?

6. How can the global convergence of information and communications technologies work for everyone?

7. How can ethical market economies be encouraged to help reduce the gap between rich and poor?

8. How can the threat of new and reemerging diseases and immune micro-organisms be reduced?

9. How can the capacity to decide be improved as the nature of work and institutions change?

10. How can shared values and new security strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terrorism, and the use of weapons of mass destruction?

11. How can the changing status of women help improve the human condition?

12. How can transnational organized crime networks be stopped from becoming more powerful and sophisticated global enterprises?

13. How can growing energy demands be met safely and efficiently?

14. How can scientific and technological breakthroughs be accelerated to improve the human condition?

15. How can ethical considerations become more routinely incorporated into global decisions?

What do you think? Is these questions impossible to answer? I think that they got a pretty good picture over the issue. I will answer these questions from my perspective over the next 15 weeks.

And I urge you to do the same, and please send your answers to jonas[a]tellusnetwork.org.

If you want to contact me, please e-mail at jonas[a]tellusnetwork.org.